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Prince Louis-Thomas de Savoie-Carignan
3rd Comte de Soissons
(1657–1702)

Biographical

3rd Comte de Soissons 1673–1702†
2nd Duc de Carignan 1673–1702†
Comte de Dreux 1673–1702†
Knight of the Order of the Holy Annunciation 1678 [Italy]

French field marshal 1690 (France)
Infantry brigadier 1688 (France)
Governor of Champagne 1673–74
Governor of Brie 1673–74
Colonel general of the Swiss and the Grisons 1673–74
General field marshal in the Imperial army

At Louis' birth, there were rumours that he was in fact the son of Louis XIV and his long-time favourite, Olimpia Mancini, and these rumours were fuelled because his birth occurred fairly close to the wedding date: his parents were married on the 21st of February 1657, and he was born between the 15th and 16th of December that year. This was a source of shame for genealogists, some of whom changed the year of his birth to 1658, or did not mention it at all. Louis was educated at Paris, and was later considered as a possible king of Poland after the death of Michael Korybut, but Jan Sobienski was chosen instead. After his studies ended in 1675, Louis volunteered in the campaign in Flanders, and in the following year, Louis XIV gave him the command of the Carignan-Salierès regiment, renamed the Soissons regiment. At this time, he was close in the succession to the throne of Savoy. He distinguished himself in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678, and after his mother, Olimpia Mancini, was forced to leave France after the Affair of the Poisons, he was free from her presence and married Uranie de la Cropte in secret. Once the marriage was revealed in 1682, his grandmother, Marie de Bourbon, tried to have the union annulled, and when that failed, she disinherited her grandson, and was determined that the Soissons branch of the family would not succeed to Savoy. Nevertheless, Louis advanced in his military career with the help of Louis XIV, but he was burdened with financial problems. In 1690 he sold his regiment that Louis XIV had helped finance , and withdrew from the court for the next two years. In 1694 he left for Venice to serve in the army there, and after this, he tried to enter the service of a coalition which had formed against Louis XIV, but he was unsuccessful. By this stage, most of the Soissons family members had left France. His brother, Prince Eugène, helped him attain the rank of Feldzeugmeister in the Imperial army in 1699. Having found a new path, Louis unfortunately died two years later from wounds sustained in battle.

Place of birth: Paris
Place of marriage: Follie Herbaut, Chartres
Place of death: Landau

Son of Eugène-Maurice de Savoie-Carignano and Olimpia Mancini. He married in secret (and morganatically), Uranie de la Cropte de Beauvais in 1680 and had issue. He also had illegitimate issue.

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